


And The Pawn Walks Away

by Gildedmuse



Series: 11 Painful Partings [10]
Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: A Chess Champion, Angst, Arguing, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Challenge Response, Divorce, F/M, Leaving His Wife & Children, Like A Champion, Missing Scene, No Beta We Die Like Hope In Russian Winter, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Short Character Scene, Short One Shot, Still Not Winning At Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 19:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: Anatoly could predict a game of Chess in under four moves. He could never had predicted how easy it would be abandoning his family and country.





	And The Pawn Walks Away

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted to LJ in 2009 as part of an attempt to do a "12 Days Of Fandom" challenge. The first part was 12 Drunken Drabbles. Each of the 11 story is a different fandom but has a similar theme: Painful Partings]

**And The Pawn Walks Away**

“You can leave me, but you cannot think to leave your children.”  
  
Anatoly cannot help but snort, not looking up at his wife as he packs away his belongs. Surely, she has known that this moment has been coming. The moves have all been laid out before her, made slowly but with a sure hand and strategy in mind. If she missed it, she must not have been paying attention at all.  
  
How can she dare tell him what he can and cannot do, when it is clear that Anatoly will do as he pleases?  
  
“They need you, Anatoly!” Svetlana stands behind her husband, as if she can block him from the door. How when she can barely keep him in the first place, when she has already lost him?  
  
Anatoly has not set out to hurt her, but they have both known this would happen, so how can Svetlana only be acting out now, when it is all far too late to stop. “I have to get out of here. Out of this country.” He looks back to his wife, her strong face set in determination that she will not be left. “You will be fine here, but I cannot stay.”  
  
“No, of course you can’t,” Svetlana snaps, pushing herself closer to Anatoly still. “Of course you can’t stay here with your wife. With your children. No, you have to run off to be with your English girl. You want your freedom, not from Russian. From me.”  
  
Perhaps… Perhaps what she is saying is true, not only this but that Anatoly should stay. That a good man would stay with his family, with his children who certain did need him and what would happen, exactly, when Anatoly walked away? Would Russia keep them provide for, as they had when their gifted chess master stood beside them? Or would she forget the family, let them fall to breadlines and prisons because they could not keep him here any longer?  
  
These thoughts, they weren’t for Anatoly. He had played his game, he set out his path to England and away from this life, and he must not look back at pasts move to wonder how the other players fell. He must look forward, to the next game and the next move. Svetlana is a smart woman, a strong woman, and she would take care of the children and their home even without him.  
  
Hell, it isn’t like Anatoly ever been much of a father, anyway. “I have a plane to catch,” he says, grabbing his bag, his single bag of everything he’s put into this home that he cares for at all. It all fits into a single bag.  
  
Svetlana must have known that they have been in trouble for a long time.  
  
“Fine, walk away,” she says, as he does just that, ignoring her yelling for him, the sad looks of his children as he leaves this home behind. He has a home waiting for him in England where there are no children or government to hold him back. “Leave me here, alone. You will see one day, Anatoly. You cannot always leave the ones who love you. Someone will hold on, want let you just walk off when you get frightened.”  
  
Maybe Svetlana is right, but not today.


End file.
